


float

by clytemnestras



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6151633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I hear that's how the Europeans say goodbye"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	float

It gets hotter each year in the barrio, even when it’s late evening and their legs are bare and swinging off the fire escape stairs. Vanessa can still feel the sweat rolling off her shoulders when Nina tangles their fingers.

 

“London”, she says. “Go.”

 

Nina kicks her legs out and takes a spoonful of ice cream. “Oh fuck, all those museums - when would I even sleep? Rent a shitty loft apartment somewhere, doesn’t have to be pretty just somewhere I can get from place to place -”

 

“I heard the rain’s worse there than in Seattle.” Vanessa lifts her sunglasses and squints against the sky.

 

“After this summer? That’s what I’d call a blessing.” Nina leans back and presses her head into the dip in Vanessa’s shoulder blades. “Okay your turn, Paris, go.”

 

Vanessa sighs. “That’s unfair.” She twists the spoon around in the rocky road tub. “I wanna go where the art takes me. Fuck the tower. Fuck the churches. I just wanna… not be here.” Vanessa can feel her skin flush cold and her breath falter even as the words fall out of her mouth. “California, go.”

 

Nina stiffens and pulls their hands apart. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have -”

 

Vanessa puts her face in her hands. She feels sick and strange and.. _helpless._ “No, fuck that was a bitch move. I’m sorry cariña I just.” _Alone_ , she thinks. _I’m all alone in the woods now._  “You’re getting the fuck out of heights and I’m a… beautician-in-training feeding her mom’s drinking habit.”

 

Nina twists her fingers through Vanessa’s hair, lifting her from her slump. “Oh you better stop that I don’t like hearing people talk smack on my best friend.” She brings her hands around to cup Vanessa’s face, Vanessa’s cheeks slotted into her palms and Vanessa’s chest relaxes out, just like that. “This is gonna suck, I know. I’m fucking terrified! What am I supposed to do out there without you there to defend my honor from the rich white assholes ready to eat me alive?”

 

Vanessa grins and picks up the champagne bottle, pouring it into the ice cream tub. “Eat them first?” She’s bringing a heaped spoon up to her mouth when Nina leans forward and presses their lips together. _Oh._

 

Vanessa makes a soft sound, feels her eyebrows crinkle and her eyes shut lets it happen, kissing back with every shift in the space between them. When Nina pulls back to take a breath she follows her with another tiny kiss; another, another, until she can hardly breathe herself.

 

Nina tilts forward so their foreheads brush. “I hear that’s how the Europeans say goodbye.”

 

It’s easy to smile like this, Vanessa’s blood is warm and her eyelids are slid halfway closed and Nina is stealing the spoon from between her fingers. “Well, if the Europeans are doing it…” She kisses Nina again, a quick, melting thing, and pulls back just as fast.

 

“Come with me.” Nina says, bringing the spoon to her mouth. “Who else is going to introduce me to the world of champagne ice cream floats, or do my hair in that way that makes me not hate the invention of mirrors? Come with me.”

 

Vanessa shakes her head and lies back, lets the cold metal of the stairs sap her body of warmth. The way her legs hang over the side makes it feel as though she’s floating, feet catching on the soft pull of air under her feet. “Don’t - you know I would hide in your suitcase if I could.”

 

“I’m gonna be a mess out there without you.” Nina slides down so they’re lying parallel, one arm propping her up, faces almost close enough to touch. The sun is low and making her eyelashes cast long shadows over her cheeks. “I don’t know what I’m gonna be in Stanford but I know for sure it’s not gonna be Golden Girl. Dios, I think about burning the acceptance letter every day so the world can go back to being smaller.”

 

Vanessa touches Nina’s cheek and Nina’s hand rests on top of hers then brings their hands together in the gap between their bodies and lets Vanessa’s thumb stroke her skin. “You’ll always be Golden Girl, Nina. Even in a white trash Golden Girl sea, you’ll be my favourite Golden Girl, querida. You gotta see the world for me, I gotta know someone can make it out of Heights alive.”

 

“Promise me that you’ll call the very second you scrape up the cash for a place of your own. I’ll hitchhike back with a bottle of champagne just for you.” Nina squeezes Vanessa’s fingers and Vanessa grins at her.

 

“That would be a deal, my friend.” She smiles wider, feeling the evening gloom filter in around her.


End file.
